JohnMcKee wrote:It's the Shelton and there is a good reason they are selling fairly well after an initial very rough start.

They just happen to be in HPISD but pay city of Dallas taxes, not many places you can buy for $400k in HPISD, much less fully updated and livable for someone in the market for a $400k house. Apparently there are a LOT of families in the building.

Also it wouldn't surprise me if there are a few people claiming their condo in The Shelton as their primary residence for the purposes of HPISD but happen to spend a lot more time at another house. Maybe not but it wouldn't surprise me.

It was a typical stick built apartment complex on Greenville near Mockingbird which was recently converted to condos. Their website mentions that the last unit has been released for sale, so they sold very quickly. Average $/sqft was $326/sqft. $250-350/sqft is the sweet spot for mass market condos in Dallas, and nobody is building them. Nobody. I think there's one complex called Greenwood Flats and other than that it's all rental being built.

Tucy wrote:LOL. That's some funny stuff there. Is Candy auditioning to take over Museum Tower marketing?

I mean... she makes a fair point. These are $800/sqft residences, in a format that is not your usual Highland Park/Preston Hollow mansion style which has been the historical choice of home for the well-to-do. If someone opened up a neighborhood of 108 brand new $800/sqft single family residences in Dallas, all at once, how long would it take to sell out? I'm guessing at least a few years if not more. We shouldn't gauge the whole Dallas condo market from the sales figures of this one ultralux tower. If a 108 unit condo building opened up at $300-400/sqft, I think we would see faster sales.

FWIW, that $800/sq ft factoid is little more than an urban legend. (And your later claim that Museum Tower condos sold for double the price per square foot of the Ritz Carlton condos is even less factual.)

Tucy wrote:LOL. That's some funny stuff there. Is Candy auditioning to take over Museum Tower marketing?

I mean... she makes a fair point. These are $800/sqft residences, in a format that is not your usual Highland Park/Preston Hollow mansion style which has been the historical choice of home for the well-to-do. If someone opened up a neighborhood of 108 brand new $800/sqft single family residences in Dallas, all at once, how long would it take to sell out? I'm guessing at least a few years if not more. We shouldn't gauge the whole Dallas condo market from the sales figures of this one ultralux tower. If a 108 unit condo building opened up at $300-400/sqft, I think we would see faster sales.

FWIW, that $800/sq ft factoid is little more than an urban legend. (And your later claim that Museum Tower condos sold for double the price per square foot of the Ritz Carlton condos is even less factual.)

$776.75 is the current average price per square foot of the available units in MT, according to Realtor.com and Zillow. $776 is pretty darned close.

Briggs Freeman (the official marketing partner of Museum Tower) has an additional never-sold unit (Unit 402) listed on their website, so I've added it to the list so we have a complete list of the publicly-available asking prices for units currently for sale:

What are you talking about? Which part of this has anything to do with "belief?"

Your belief, contrary to the evidence, that Museum Tower residences are generally worth, or have sold for, $800/sq foot, or close to it.

It's not about belief, it's just math. The current average price per square foot of all the available units is, like I said, $776. Just looking at the 7 units you listed, the average price per sqft is $867.

eburress wrote:What are you talking about? Which part of this has anything to do with "belief?"

Your belief, contrary to the evidence, that Museum Tower residences are generally worth, or have sold for, $800/sq foot, or close to it.

It's not about belief, it's just math. The current average price per square foot of all the available units is, like I said, $776. Just looking at the 7 units you listed, the average price per sqft is $867.

You cannot seriously think that producing an "average" including the extreme outlier of the Penthouse price gives a meaningful result. Regarding your $776 average, I don't know where you see 24 available units on Zillow. It seems you misunderstand Zillow; other than the For Sale units, Zillow's prices are just estimates, and especially in Texas, not particularly reliable estimates. And again, if you included the outlier penthouse price, it's a meaningless result.

The average of the six non-penthouse units currently known to be listed is $685.97/sq ft (and that includes one that is being sold furnished).

I was providing an objective, mathematical view of the currently available units. If you want to remove the penthouse in order to make your narrative work, that's up to you. My whole point though is that Candy's article wasn't far off, objectively speaking.

For what it's worth, I know what Zillow is and how it works. I referred to Zillow AND Realtor.com and again, there are more than 7 units currently listed.

eburress wrote:I was providing an objective, mathematical view of the currently available units. If you want to remove the penthouse in order to make your narrative work, that's up to you. My whole point though is that Candy's article wasn't far off, objectively speaking.

For what it's worth, I know what Zillow is and how it works. I referred to Zillow AND Realtor.com and again, there are more than 7 units currently listed.

Objective, perhaps. But entirely useless. Surely you understand that including an extreme outlier when calculating an average (mean) such as this does not give you anything close to a usable result. The asking price for the penthouse, especially this penthouse has almost no relationship to the pricing of the rest of the building. To get a meaningful number in such a situation, you either have to throw out the outlier or perhaps use the Median, which in our situation would be $664.68 (not so surprisingly, quite close to the $685.97 mean calculated by excluding the outlier).

Please show me the 24 units (or more than 7; or 7) units listed on Zillow.

It is what it is, a statistic used for marketing and/or "wow" purposes, but technically speaking, it's not far off.

Oh snap...I was wrong and you were right. Many of the realtor.com units are only showing the "zestimates" but aren't actually being listed. Averaging the zestimates though (as questionably accurate as those are) still gets you a number in the vicinity of $800/sqft.

eburress wrote:It is what it is, a statistic used for marketing and/or "wow" purposes, but technically speaking, it's not far off.

Oh snap...I was wrong and you were right. Many of the realtor.com units are only showing the "zestimates" but aren't actually being listed. Averaging the zestimates though (as questionably accurate as those are) still gets you a number in the vicinity of $800/sqft.

LOL Indeed, it is what it is -- a statistic intended to give a false impression.

Plus penthouse aside high rise condos are incredibly difficult to comp building wide, first floor units sometimes get a premium, sometimes they take a big hit, a 2nd floor unit may take a bigger hit because a tree obstructed view, a 3rd or 4th might get a premium for a tree top view, lower floors or exposures might take a big hit for severely obstructed views where units above a certain height that may not have any relation to other exposures generally applicable floor premium get a premium for unobstructed views.

eburress wrote:It is what it is, a statistic used for marketing and/or "wow" purposes, but technically speaking, it's not far off.

Oh snap...I was wrong and you were right. Many of the realtor.com units are only showing the "zestimates" but aren't actually being listed. Averaging the zestimates though (as questionably accurate as those are) still gets you a number in the vicinity of $800/sqft.

LOL Indeed, it is what it is -- a statistic intended to give a false impression.

I know this thread sometimes veers toward the snarky and contentious, so let me start by saying this is just an honest question. I'm confused.

Tucy's updates total 115 units (90 sold, 25 remaining).

The Candy's dirt article that everyone enjoyed so much stated "Currently there are 108 homes, after legal combinations of units"

DCAD shows a total of 111 accounts at the location. 25 show as held by Museum Tower LP, which I assume would indicate the unsold units Tucy is referencing... But that would mean only 86 units have sold.

Jay9398 wrote:I know this thread sometimes veers toward the snarky and contentious, so let me start by saying this is just an honest question. I'm confused.

Tucy's updates total 115 units (90 sold, 25 remaining).

The Candy's dirt article that everyone enjoyed so much stated "Currently there are 108 homes, after legal combinations of units"

DCAD shows a total of 111 accounts at the location. 25 show as held by Museum Tower LP, which I assume would indicate the unsold units Tucy is referencing... But that would mean only 86 units have sold.

Can Tucy or anyone else in the know explain what I am missing here?

There were originally 115 units shown on DCAD. When units are combined, the combined units then show up on DCAD as one unit.

Tucy wrote:There were originally 115 units shown on DCAD. When units are combined, the combined units then show up on DCAD as one unit.

Thanks. Are the combined units in your count of solds (90) or remaining (25)? How do you account for this in the sellout projection? If you can't tell/don't care, that's fine. I appreciate the regular updates; I'm just curious.

Tucy wrote:There were originally 115 units shown on DCAD. When units are combined, the combined units then show up on DCAD as one unit.

Thanks. Are the combined units in your count of solds (90) or remaining (25)? How do you account for this in the sellout projection? If you can't tell/don't care, that's fine. I appreciate the regular updates; I'm just curious.

Units are combined when sold, so they are included in the number sold. The numbers are not adjusted due to combinations. If someone buys two units and combines them, they buy two units, so there is no reason for any adjustment. Nor are the projections adjusted for combinations. The projections are a simple calculation of time to sell the remaining units assuming the same pace of sales.

Not that it matters much, but I was able to find public sales information for just two of the units. One of them was a double unit purchase that they got at $517.40 /sqft. This double unit was in the first 5 floors. The other one was between the 5th and 10th floor and was just a single unit. This one sold for $642.49 /sqft.Since the data set is so small, there really isn't any useful information from this, just thought it was interesting. I suppose I could have included the sales years since that's another important variable, but meh...

Hey guys I apologize for being so curt with my "Who gives a shit" remark. I have no real excuse for being a temporary jerk--it was just a terrible day, I saw the umpteenth comment on MT and just let fly. A lot of people do give a shit and I'm sure others probably don't but rudeness is never appropriate here. I love this forum even though I don't comment all that much. We are lucky that we have such a well-informed group here who really care about this city and north Texas.

citygeek wrote:Hey guys I apologize for being so curt with my "Who gives a shit" remark. I have no real excuse for being a temporary jerk--it was just a terrible day, I saw the umpteenth comment on MT and just let fly. A lot of people do give a shit and I'm sure others probably don't but rudeness is never appropriate here. I love this forum even though I don't comment all that much. We are lucky that we have such a well-informed group here who really care about this city and north Texas.

Hey, I'm sure we've all been there at one point or another, but big of you to own up to it at least.

Also, Tucy, thanks so much for your constant updates. I don't really comment much in this thread, but I do follow the sales of MT.

Museum Tower has chopped another $3 Million off of the price of the penthouse. It was recently listed at $16.5 Million. Now they are asking $13.5 Million.

When they began "heavily marketing" the penthouse back in mid-2015, they priced it at $24 Million, including a $3 Million build-out allowance, so effectively $21 Million for the shell space for which they are now asking only $13.5 Million.

Back in the old forum in 2015, there was a lively discussion as to whether there was a market for a $20 Million + penthouse in Dallas. We now know the answer, at least as to this particular penthouse.

A client of mine has rented a unit on floor 6- the views are great from "down low" as well! Her in building realtor said the top floor penthouse had sold & the sub penthouse was under contract for half the floor. His view of sales were not like Tucy's. Of course he's a in home realtor, but he seemed sincere when he said they were on pace to sell out by the end of the year.

NdoorTX wrote:A client of mine has rented a unit on floor 6- the views are great from "down low" as well! Her in building realtor said the top floor penthouse had sold & the sub penthouse was under contract for half the floor. His view of sales were not like Tucy's. Of course he's a in home realtor, but he seemed sincere when he said they were on pace to sell out by the end of the year.

Yes. The top floor (4201) is the unit that sold in May.

Seeming sincere while exaggerating is pretty high on the list of job requirements for realtors, especially for Museum Tower.

I'm sure they also seemed sincere when they told us they had been averaging 2 sales per month; when they told us they had 15 sold while under construction; when they told us they had a three-year sellout plan; when they put the $20 Million + price tag on the top floor . . .

Crazy to believe it, but Dallas has now become a place where the most expensive condos are as pricey as the most expensive house estates. With Museum Tower approaching 90% sold, and the Ritz finally putting it's most expensive units on the market, I think it's safe to say we've crossed an important though teeny-tiny submarket threshold... the foundation has been laid for ultra-delux highrise ownership.

tamtagon wrote:OMG someone bought the top floor?!?! was the selling price published?

Crazy to believe it, but Dallas has now become a place where the most expensive condos are as pricey as the most expensive house estates. With Museum Tower approaching 90% sold, and the Ritz finally putting it's most expensive units on the market, I think it's safe to say we've crossed an important though teeny-tiny submarket threshold... the foundation has been laid for ultra-delux highrise ownership.

Haven't seen even a hint of the selling price. The last asking price I saw was $13.5 Million, so less than that.

It would be crazy indeed to believe that the most expensive condos are as prices as the most expensive house estates. Because it's not true.

tamtagon wrote:...the point being that there is a viable sub-market of million+ dollar condos. North Texas does not have many intown home estates selling for more than ten million.

If that was your point, it's odd you would write what you did. What you did write is simply, objectively false. What you now claim was your point is true, but hardly noteworthy. Dallas has had a viable sub-market of million+ condos for many years.

tamtagon wrote:OMG someone bought the top floor?!?! was the selling price published?

Crazy to believe it, but Dallas has now become a place where the most expensive condos are as pricey as the most expensive house estates. With Museum Tower approaching 90% sold, and the Ritz finally putting it's most expensive units on the market, I think it's safe to say we've crossed an important though teeny-tiny submarket threshold... the foundation has been laid for ultra-delux highrise ownership.

Haven't seen even a hint of the selling price. The last asking price I saw was $13.5 Million, so less than that.

It would be crazy indeed to believe that the most expensive condos are as prices as the most expensive house estates. Because it's not true.

How many 'house estates' are for sale in Dallas County for more than $10 million?

From the paper today, this house is like a dream! Not sure how much land comes with it...

For just $14 million, Dallas home buyers can pick up a little piece of the Mediterranean without having to leave the city.

The three-story, 14,179-square-foot house at 4926 Deloache Ave. in Old Preston Hollow has seven bedrooms, eight full and five half bathrooms, seven living spaces and a pool and spa. And with Spanish-style roofing and actual Spanish tile floors, it's the closest thing to Asturias this side of the Atlantic.

There's a media room with stadium seating, enough space to entertain 200 guests, a wood-paneled library and a basement wine cellar with room for 5,000 bottles of the finest vino available.

The house has been on the market for several months, but at price tags like this, Swanson said it can often take three or four years to find the right fit.

That there's an apartment in a troubled highrise listed at about the same price point, and that apartment sold is significant. The hyperbole in some of my booster club observations are gross to me too sometimes, but the threshold was crossed - an apartment sold for (probably) more than $10 million. Just because it's an even number, the next milestone is $20 million, which would approach the top floor of Dallas County residential sales.

I will say, though, that even I don't to know if Dallas will ever have apartments reaching an appraised value comparable to estates like that one Beal bought from Hicks. Could you imagine?